Batter up!

So, we have this Walk With Me fundraiser coming up for Easter Seals, Luke’s main therapy place.  In order to prepare for this day they are doing a special night at a minor league baseball game, where several kids with special needs will be doing some main things…like the first pitch, calling out “let’s play ball” and doing the anthem.   Well Luke is going to be one of three kids that will be on the field for the first pitch, since he doesn’t really talk he can’t really do anything else. 

In preparation for this my husband has been “coaching” Luke, not that he needs “coaching” to throw things.  But my husband has a baseball that he has been working with Luke on, in order for him to throw…since we didn’t know for sure if Luke would actually be throwing the ball or not.  Which I just found out yesterday that he won’t be throwing the ball, but just be there on the field and one of the older kids will be throwing the ball.

Anyway, in preparation for what we thought Luke might be doing my husband has been trying to get Luke to throw the baseball while in his walker.  Which Luke surprisingly is able to do quite well.  He has gotten so confident of late that he’ll let go of one hand on the walker to wave to someone, grab on to something or even to throw a baseball.  He has quite an arm when he gets it right, although many times he winds up throwing it backwards…which I have no idea how that happens.  Even when he throws backwards Luke is able to stand for a few minutes holding on to his walker with only one hand….which is so great!

My husband and Luke have had a fun time “training” and our baby girl has been in on the action too.  She’ll go after the ball when Luke throws it and she’ll try to throw it herself.  My husband thinks she may be a softball player….but she’ll have to learn to not let the ball get by her so often.  Watch the video below and you’ll see what I mean, if you look close enough you’ll watch the ball go right between her legs…while she is walking…..which I think takes some talent, right?  

They strike again!

So this morning while I’m cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, I let the kids play down the hall.  I usually put up the gate, but this morning I thought I’d let them play in the hall and their own rooms if they wanted.  After cleaning the kitchen I was going to write this blog, but before doing that I went to check on the kids.  They usually come and go while I’m in the kitchen, but this time they were suspiciously absent and quiet.  Those two things are usually not a good sign, and when you combine them…it usually means the kids are up to something.

So, I walk down the hall and I check Luke’s room.  They weren’t there, so I went on further down the hall and before I saw the kids I heard a “thunk” sound.  When I looked into our baby girl’s room I saw both kids looking at me very innocently, but I quickly thought about the sound I heard and noticed where the kids were.  They were right next to our baby girl’s diaper pail.

I then took in the rest of the room, there were diapers everywhere….clean one’s….but I quickly figured out that they were putting the clean diapers in the dirty diaper pail.  So I moved the flap on the pail and sure enough, there were clean diapers….and not just a few….more like 15 laying on top.  I quickly rescued the poor clean diapers.  I guess it is a good thing that they know where the diapers go, right? 

I took the clean diapers out of the pail and put them back, only to find that right afterwards our baby girl grabbed a clean diaper and tried to put it back in the dirty diaper pail.  Because I wanted to finish getting myself ready for the day, I picked up the diaper pail and put it in the bathroom with me.  This didn’t stop our baby girl who then brought a clean diaper into the bathroom and pointed to the diaper pail and said “aaaAAhhh??”  I then told her “no, the diaper pail is only for dirty diapers” and pointed to her diaper that she had on.  Then she looked at me, looked where I pointed, then pointed to the same area and asked, “aaAAhh?”  I’m not sure she got what I was trying to say.  But, she did stop trying to put the clean diapers in the diaper pail.

Only then, Luke decided to have some “fun”.  He then put one of the “clean” diapers in his mouth so he could chew on it !!  I’m sure this was one was in the diaper pail earlier. AARRGGGHHH!!!!  After getting the diaper out of his mouth I then closed all the bedroom doors.  So much for letting them play in their rooms!!  

Mommy Brain

Now I know I have mentioned the “mommy brain” off and on in various posts.  I just have to share two funny “mommy brain” moments that took place in the last 24 hours. 

This morning I was getting the kids ready to go meet and friend and her daughter to have a play date.  Everything went well, got the kids dressed and had breakfast…until I went to go put on their shoes.  Our baby girl’s shoes I found fairly quickly, after I realized I already got them out and put them by our diaper bag.  But Luke’s shoes were another story.

I looked all over.  I thought I put them in his room in their usual spot…but maybe they were by the door to the garage…..so I looked there as well.  But….I couldn’t find them.  Finally I stopped to think and realized it may not be a case of “mommy brain”….it may be a case of “sneaky kids”.

Luke was playing in his room this morning while I was cooking breakfast, and he has clothes all over the floor… so I looked under those and…and I looked under the bed…and under the stairs to his bed…and in the clothes drawers…..but the shoes weren’t there.  Finally I saw part of a shoe in the laundry basket under some clothes.  I dug around and found the tennis shoes….but for Luke he also needs his SMO’s, or braces. 

By this time I was getting frustrated when I realized we were going to be running late.  Then…I looked again in the kitchen and saw our baby girl who was still in her feeding chair.  I then realized that she has a fascination with shoes and has put her brother’s shoes in her closet before.  So I went to her room…sure enough the braces were in her closet…only not on the shelf with her shoes…instead the braces were in her laundry basket.  I’m not sure if Luke or our baby girl did this…or maybe both…but they sure had their mommy stumped this morning.

The second thing happened yesterday…only I didn’t realize what I did until today at lunch.  That sounds strange, doesn’t it?  Well, yesterday around lunch time I was preparing to leave for an appointment.  A friend came over with her two kids to watch our baby girl while I took Luke to his eye doctor.  So, there I was talking to my friend, preparing lunch for our baby girl and Luke…..and mentally going over things (did I pack everything I need?  Did I forget to tell my friend where to find things for our baby girl?).  I’m sure all moms can relate to that thinking. 

Anyway, come to find out…today I opened the freezer to get out some chicken nuggets to cook for lunch….and there was a small bowl of green beans.  I put them in the freezer to cool them off for Luke at lunch yesterday.  I obviously forgot about them.  They were frozen good.  I had to let them thaw out so I could throw them away.  This was a definite case of “mommy brain”.

Go Luke Go!!!

This past weekend we went to visit my husband’s grandparents.  Both his grandpa Bob and grandma Mary live in Indiana, so we left Friday and stayed till lunch time Sunday and were able to have a good visit with them both.  The kids really enjoyed visiting their great-grandma Mary who happens to live right next to the elementary school of her town.

When I say next to, I mean in her back yard…literally.   Saturday night we took both Luke and our baby girl into the backyard and over to the school’s play sets.  We helped Luke and our baby girl get up the steps and things and helped them down the slides.  They thought it was great.

One of the play sets was set up kind-of like a maze of sorts.  It had 5 different slides and had several stairs and three ways you could enter the set in order to get to the slides.  Two ways to enter led up a stair and had you walk over a log bridge and then up more stairs to get to the slides.  The other way to enter was by using some parallel bars that led to a stair and then you could take a couple more stairs to get to the slides. 

We let our baby girl go down a slide and then walk all the way around and come in one of the far entrances that led the bridge and then the stairs.  But for Luke, we thought it would be a good workout for him to use the parallel bars.  After all they were the perfect height. 

At first Luke wasn’t so sure about the bars, I had to keep directing his hands to the right positions so he could walk forward.  But, by the second time he figured it out and was doing great!  Not only did Luke get a work out with his arms, but his leg and ankle muscles had to hurt later on because the playground had tiny stone pebbles as a floor.  It felt like you were walking on a beach the way your feet would sink and slide when you walked.

Below you can see Luke walking on the parallel bars, this was his third attempt and he was doing well till towards the end you can tell he is starting to get frustrated.  He just wants to get to that slide already!!  Forget the walking to get there!!

Luke's Dance

Luke has always loved music.  It is the one thing that tends to calm him.  So on long trips we play videos with music and when we go to new places to spend the night, we take a radio and play music to help him sleep.  Luke also loves to “rock” to the music…sometimes it looks more like “head-butting”.  Either way I think it is his way of dancing.

One night I caught this on video.  Luke and daddy dancing to the music.  It was pretty unique, since Luke doesn’t yet use his legs to dance…it is all in the upper body.  Maybe Luke can start his own dance video. 

Solution?

Alright, I talked a week or so ago about Luke’s new bed and the problem we have now with Luke hitting his feet and especially his head on the wall next to his bed.  After a lot of thought and research on possible solutions, I finally decided to try putting some of those puzzle piece play mats on the wall.  Hoping they would keep Luke from hurting himself.

Well on my way through the store to find some, I happened to find some bath mats that were really cushy.  So I decided to try those instead.  I even called my husband and told him about them and had him swing by the hardware store to pick up some “industrial strength Velcro”.  I thought this might be the perfect solution.

It took a few days to get them up.  I had to time it right, the Velcro was supposed to be on for 24 hours before using it and I knew I couldn’t do that…so I put the Velcro on the mats…let them sit 24 hours and then had to wait for a morning where I had time to put them on the wall first thing after getting Luke up.  That way, the mats would be on the wall for at least 6 hours before Luke took his nap.

The day I put them up went well, I thought for sure we found the solution!!  Then the following morning I let Luke play a little in his bed before getting him up.  When I went in I found that the upper part of the mats were hanging off the wall.  Urr…I was so frustrated.  Of course that morning I didn’t have time to try and fix this problem because we had therapy and then mom’s group.

So...Wednesday night I had an idea.  I knew we had some extra “Krazy glue” from something I had to try to get up in the bathroom.  So Thursday morning right after getting Luke up, I climbed in his bed and put some Krazy glue on the Velcro part that was showing.  I am hoping that this will work!!  Luke was so tired when I laid him down for his nap Thursday that he didn't have a chance to mess with the rugs…so hopefully the glue will have plenty of time to dry and hopefully this will work!!  Below you will find pictures of what I am talking about, what the rugs should look like and what they looked like after a day and a half of Luke messing with them.

Back in time?

   "If you could go back in time and tell your teenage self one things, what would you say?" (Got Teens by Jill Savage)

This is a hard one for me.  It is hard because I grew up in a great loving Christian home.  I had parents who instilled God’s values in my life, therefore I didn’t get into any “big” issues.  I never did drugs or drank alcohol and when I married I was a virgin.  I’m not saying I was “perfect”…not at all.  But, from a young age I tried to live a life for Christ.

I could tell myself to not “kiss so many frogs” before finding my “prince”.   My grandma always told me to “keep kissing those frogs and one day one will turn in to a prince”.  I would just laugh and smile at her.  But, in the back of my mind I always had those thoughts.

Or maybe I would tell myself to be more involved in “special needs” activities and get involved somehow with “special needs” families.  I say this because our oldest son, who is now 3 ½ years old, has global developmental delays.  He has no diagnosis as of yet, although we keep searching.  The only thing I can really explain about him is that he has low muscle tone throughout his body.  But, the Lord continues to give him strength and he continues to get stronger and stronger each day…little by little.  Through him I have a definite new view on life through the eyes of “special needs”.

I did help a couple years with “Special Olympics” which was always a blessing.  Those experiences opened my eyes to the “special needs” world.  But that window only stayed open for a short time, after the “Olympics” were over I went back to my blessed life and rarely thought about those kids and what their families must be going through.

So I think that is what I will settle on, I would tell my teenage self to pay more attention to those with “special needs” and their families.  I would also tell myself to look for ways to volunteer to help those families to make their lives easier and to soak up as much information on that subject as possible….in order to prepare for the future.